


Flicker

by Puimoo



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29276094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puimoo/pseuds/Puimoo
Summary: Lloyd and Zelos stop at a tavern while hunting down the remaining Exsphere.  Post-series
Relationships: Lloyd Irving/Zelos Wilder
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Flicker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gargant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gargant/gifts).



There is music and laughter wherever they travel to. Lloyd recognises the opulence in the air, an intoxicating sense of freedom that only hints at the desperate edge that sat there before. Lloyd’s achievements have stretched out before him, whispered into towns and filling their streets in the weeks and months before he even steps into them. They are certainly here at their latest pitstop, another tavern with some potential new leads.

He’s uncomfortable with it at first, trying to shift it into something that feels more acceptable – less him, more really anything else at this point – but Zelos nudges it, encourages it even.

“This is as much about them as it is about you,” Zelos says with that bewildering mix of lightness touched with a coating of snow, and it reminds Lloyd of how while Lloyd connects to these people with an ease that Zelos struggles with, Zelos understands them in a way that Lloyd is still foreign to.

Speaking of…

The party and the celebrations around Lloyd dim until the merriment and the clang of glasses and cutlery are faintly outlined edges of Lloyd’s consciousness. The world has a habit of doing this, suddenly plunging into a grey when contrasted with a splash of unexpected red, even if that red only creeps into his thoughts at the most inopportune times.

Zelos isn’t quite so unexpected now, not with these months on the road hunting down the remaining exspheres. Lloyd has gotten used to most of Zelos’ smiles, the way his gaze slides to the side when the past slips into the room, how his eyes widen just so when Lloyd manages to take him by surprise. Lloyd knows those calloused fingers and how they feel wrapped around his wrist, sitting comfortably on Lloyd’s hips, tangled in the wisps of Lloyd’s hair.

And he knows that mouth.

It’s been a … revealing few months.

Zelos stands there against a far wall – leans like a willow bowed at the hip, arms loosely folded across his chest. And Lloyd is absolutely useless in moments like this, reduced back to a boy who grew up in a vaguely serviceable world that somehow manage to avoid everything that even threatened to be frivolous. Zelos isn’t frivolous – could never be frivolous, no matter how protectively Zelos may sometimes try to wrap that intent around himself – but in this moment Lloyd unabashedly is, caught up wholly in the way the colour of Zelos’ hair flickers between all the different shades of red in the candlelight. One moment, the deep, vibrant fuchsia of a cascading bougainvillea in bloom, the next the blood red tear of a plum sliced in half. In this light – flickering and inconsistent – Zelos’ hair almost takes on a life of its own, shaping and tumbling and warping even as Zelos himself remains still.

The smirk that toys on Zelos’ lips (trapped and then liberated with each bend of the candlelight, sweet and hollowed and uncertain and cocky) seems both a ploy and an invitation.

Lloyd is happy to fall for both. But when he moves to step away from the noise of the tavern and into Zelos’ silent promise the other throws up his hands and gestures him away with a smirk. There is a part of Zelos that enjoys someone else suffering the claustrophobic edge that comes with being the center of attention. And as much as Lloyd wants to pull him in, let the warmth wrap around them both after a few long days on the road, Zelos hasn’t yet quite settled into a world that has never felt like it had a space for him.

Later, when the candles will have burnt down to naked stubs and the shadows have settled around them like a blanket, Lloyd will press in against that smirk, swallow the needy moan that will unabashedly slip through. He will taste the laughter there, the unapologetic desire, and when Zelos breaks away first (Zelos still always breaks away first, offering an out that is not required), Lloyd will chase after him.

 _“This is as much about you as it is them,”_ Zelos will say in a way that Lloyd still doesn’t quite understand, but he’s learning that Zelos finds it easier to speak about others needs rather than is own.

The candlelight flickers again, and Lloyd is back in the now again. There is a knowing glint to Zelos’ eyes, an unfilled promise. Lloyd smiles back, broad and wide, and it’s an answer all in itself. 

It is easy then to return to the party, and to allow Zelos to gather information from around the seedier edges that always emerge when the drink flows this readily while Lloyd wins them over with earnest eyes and honesty.

That flash of red stays still with Lloyd throughout.


End file.
